He is prone on an Iraqi rooftop, providing cover for the troops by taking out credible threats. “American Sniper” opens by throwing us right in the middle of Kyle’s military life. Having gained 35 pounds and bulked himself up to refrigerator/freezer size, not to mention acquiring a convincing Texas accent, Cooper has unexpectedly transformed himself into a virtual double for the man who is on view in numerous YouTube clips. Though those who’ve seen him in “Silver Linings Playbook” and “American Hustle” can be forgiven for thinking of him as an unlikely choice, Bradley Cooper is completely on target as the man so feared by Al Qaeda that it placed a price of $180,000 on his head. Yet creeping up on Kyle over the more than 1,000 days he spent in Iraq, and on the audience as well, is the notion that there are unexpected, relentlessly soul-destroying consequences to those actions that will affect even a person convinced, as Kyle was, that he could defend what he’d done if he came face to face with God. Kyle was a thorough-going patriot who never stopped believing completely in his mission and, as written by Jason Hall, this film respects that. By the same token, it would be a mistake to see “American Sniper” as an exercise in some kind of revisionism.
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